Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced his most significant wartime Cabinet shakeup yet, tapping a new defense minister as Kyiv ramps up an anti-graft crackdown and presses a grinding offensive in the country’s occupied south.
Zelenskiy named Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s State Property Fund, to replace Oleksii Reznikov, who has battled allegations of graft in military procurement by subordinates on his watch.
Reznikov, who has denied wrongdoing and informed the president this summer that he was overworked, shook up top positions in the ministry in February to weed out sleaze.
Photo: AFP
He submitted his resignation yesterday, he wrote on the social media platform X.
The British government now expects him to be named as Kyiv’s ambassador to London, although the appointment has yet to be confirmed, people familiar with the situation said.
He was not personally involved in corruption and is not under investigation, a person familiar with Ukraine’s graft probe said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I think the ministry needs new approaches and another format of cooperation with the military and with society,” Zelenskiy said on Sunday in his daily video address. “The parliament will be asked to approve the decision this week.”
Zelenskiy has ramped up a crackdown on corruption, which remains a major concern for allies as they continue to pour weapons and cash into Ukraine to help it beat back Russia’s invasion, retake occupied territory and stabilize the war-ravaged economy.
The president last month fired all of the army’s top draft officers, following the dismissal of a number of lawmakers, including from his own party. Reznikov’s removal might help give Zelenskiy cover against concern that corruption is undermining the armed forces as Ukrainian soldiers fight Russia at the front.
Umerov, 41, has been praised by anti-corruption activists for his efforts to clean up graft at the State Property Fund.
He has been involved in war-related talks, including about prisoner swaps and the grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export food via the Black Sea before Russia pulled out in July. A fluent Turkish speaker, he worked for the leader of Ukraine’s Crimean Tatars after Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014 and has focused on the protection of human rights of its indigenous people.
He also has extensive ties in Turkey and the Middle East, where countries often seek to play go-betweens with the Kremlin and Kyiv.
“If after a thousand visits there you are not treated as a brother, it means you might be some kind of wretch,” he said in an interview with Ukrayinska Pravda, referring to his dealings in Turkey. “Plus, I speak Turkish.”
US President Joe Biden, asked by reporters near his home in Delaware, said he was aware that Zelenskiy intends to replace his defense minister. He declined to comment further.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats